Massachusetts is shutting down MCI-Concord. These 5 notable prisoners were once housed there

CONCORD, Mass — Massachusetts’ oldest men’s prison is closing its doors as the state continues to see a decline in prison population.

In 2024, MCI-Concord is only at half-capacity. But during its 146-year history, the prison has housed some notable names inside its walls.

Malcolm X, then known as Malcolm Little, was housed at the complex when it was still known as the Concord Reformatory over 15 months from 1947 to 1948. The human rights figure was found guilty of multiple felony counts in Middlesex County in 1946 and was transferred to Concord after a stint in the Charlestown State Prison.

It was in the Concord Reformatory that Malcolm X was first exposed to the Nation of Islam.

John Geoghan, a key figure in the Roman Catholic sex abuse cases, was put in protective custody at the MCI-Concord after being convicted of indecent assault and battery for grabbing the buttocks of a 10-year-old boy in a swimming pool. Geoghan paid a $10 million settlement to 86 of his victims in 2002. Geoghan was killed by a fellow inmate at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster in 2003.

Leeland Eisenberg served time at MCI-Concord after he entered a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire armed with road flares strapped to his chest he claimed were a bomb. Eisenberg took six people hostage requesting to speak with Clinton, who he believed could help him get psychiatric help. Eisenberg surrendered six hours after the standoff began and was taken into custody.

The teen hacker Cameron LaCroix was held at MCI-Concord. The New Bedford teen is best known for hacking into Paris Hilton’s cellphone and defacing Burger King’s Twitter account.

Before Joseph Barboza was a notorious hitman for the Patriarca crime family, the New Bedford native spent five years at MCI-Concord and led the largest prison break in the facilities’ history. Barboza was caught after less than 24 hours. Barboza went on to have a prolific and brutal career as an enforcer for the crime family, earning the nickname “The Animal.”

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